Alone (Western)

[Scorched]

[Hey, I'm a new writer, trying out new things, including forum posting. Friend, frequent forum flyer advised me to post in the (fan)fiction zone for feedback and to see which story fly with colors, and which don't. I just want to get better, quick and while I'm doing that entertain wordly]

[A casual original story about a gunslinger getting by, just barely, not physically, but the other part is lacking. Not old, but still weary, sticking and zen-like focusing to his code. A moral compass where people lost their ways. A world where people act before they speak, scavenge and not sow. Reaping is highly encouraged.]

[Like this writing, check out A Simple Soldier's Return (Original Work) and Casual Post Apocalyptic Friday (Original Work) [Second Arc ongoing], The Bowman [The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon FF novella], original story threads, written by me and to be found on this forum.]

'And I wanted to shoot him. I did, but would I have shot him? Even if he didn't pull. I know I ached for it. Fingers were itching. Adrenaline oozing. Heart beating where nothing was. When does it count? And do I call it? I see it how is, it is what it is. Right here and now, they ask me, by pulling, to pull, and I deliver and set them free. Or do I just lay them down?'

Solo walked into a bar. He counted two heads. Not alone. There was no furniture in the whole miniature-like bar, except for an old oak object posted in the middle of the quiet room. Sand ruffled under the door creak. Sun was high noon. It was closing time. Solo looked behind the bar, expecting alcohol, getting so much more. A slender woman, blond and elegant. Or regal, Solo wasn't on point with words right there and then. Because Solo's camel hat was stifling and heat seeped in to his head like a cockroach enters your mouth when you ate honey glazed cookies in the boiling smoldering night.

He made eye-contact, crucial. He approached the bar. The woman was talking. Not with Solo. Solo's prey talked back. Not facing solo. Solo got close to the two. They made a small triangle: woman behind bar, prey facing her over the counter and Solo facing both.

Solo cut through the bullshit that was spewing out his prey's mouth. A dark man, not in color, sitting at the bar.
Prey: 'Blablabla.'

Solo: 'Shut your mouth.' He did not stop staring at the tenderer behind the bar.

She kindly retorted: 'I hope I wasn't offending you or anything, pick of y'ur poison?' She said 'your', like a Southern belle would dream the words away in Solo's ear and make him all mellow, if Solo knew what a Southern belle was.

Solo grinned and said nothing.

Prey:'Got problem?'

Solo wanted to answer. Prey kept talking and Solo kept listening, but not answering. He loved waiting, he loved the cool, calm, collected vibe that went along the focus of waiting. He smiled at the waitress, and said:'Bourbon?'

Belle:'Coming up, stranger. What's you name?'

Solo:'Ladies first, got a name?' He got his drink, small glass, made the drink feel small. Solo downed it.

Belle:'I don't have name.' Solo had heard that one before. Laughed anyway. More like grinning, lopsided; asymmetrical.

Solo:'Solo is the name.'

Belle:'I wasn't asking for how large your squad or crew is.'

Solo wanted to laugh, but here delivery was shy, witty but not funny, weirdly. He laughed. Prey had not said a word. This is what you would call being talked down in the West. Solo came from the South. He loved Southerners, probably the reason he liked the bartendster. Solo said to Bell that he had a job to do, stopped talking and walked to the table, glass in hand, empty. Seated himself. Put his empty glass on the oak object in the room. A table. Solo moved his foot. The chair moved. Not out of itself, it was the foot's movement. The chair stopped. Solo pointed at Prey. Said nothing. Pointed at chair. And gave smile to lighten the sunlit room. Solo fixed his hat. Bracing. Prey finally caught on.

And he said:'How much?'

Solo:'How much what?'

Prey:'Bounty.' Solo said nothing. He did not like to put a price on a mortal's life. Prey made a guess, and taking it to be much or a lot and worth a whole lot of shit. Solo shook his head. Prey had guessed right, Solo wanted to put him off. Prey was slightly put off.

Prey:'Let's skip the financials, did they gave a reason?'

Solo:'Yeah. Or else I would not be here. No offense. But If they want a job, they get me. And if they get me, they get you. If I get you, I get you dead.'

Prey laughed out loud and said that Solo was being all damn cool about it, Solo liked that and thanked Prey.

Prey:'Ok, Mr. Solo. Hat and alone, let me guess, 44. Colt and single action?'

Solo leaned in, made a movement with his finger, touching his lips. It could have meant anything really. The way Solo did it. Solo figured and said: 'Ssst.'

Prey started adopting a grin at this point of the conversation and said: 'I pay to find out ? Or some other BS? Cool shit? Clint much and all that. Listen, I didn't slaughter them, I set them free. They were poor, had nothing and deserved it.'

Solo said to Prey that he better stop grinning or he would wipe it of the place where his face was. He made a point of saying it hard and loud and reassuring the bartendster all the same, quickly, yet decisive soon after he said it. She gave a fragile small, that lit up her frail visage. Solo loved her mouth and the actions it made. Prey tried to hit Solo, his face got smashed instead. The taste of oakey-ness can hurt.

Again Solo made eye contact with Belle. Reassuring. Belle's mouth acted out. Solo wasn't sure what is was acting out. Would ask later. Sooner than later.

Prey had a nosebleed and would stop grinning from now. Solo grinned, because he knew this and said:'Everybody says what you say, I heard it. I breathed it, I lived it, bad men do good shit, bad shit, guys like you. I don't call out your shit, because I don't like befouling my mouth with it. I thickens and loads the air with a weary heaviness that is past redemption, past salvation, grace and the likes. You end here. Lights out. No mas. Capiche. Snake eyes.'

Prey stopped laughing and said:'I got a man outside. He has a gun aimed at her or you, you don't know, you willing to risk it, Solo?'

Solo reached for his pocket. Looked at Prey. He did not try another thing. Nose was still bleeding. Solo put a silver gun on the oak table. And winked at Prey. And the waitress, because you know, he was giving them out. Prey made a face and did not have a man outside.

Prey wanted to say something. He felt something. The reason he stopped laughing back then.

Solo:'Last call.' He gestured at Belle and asked for another, Belle asked softly and quick if it should be another Bourbon. Solo said he'd have a bourbon. Asked in turn to Prey if he wanted something, Prey wasn't feeling it. Solo thought it was a mistake. It was last call. He said it out loud, right?, he asked himself.

Belle approached the table put down the bourbon. As soon as it hit the table, it left it again, amber liquid vanished. Glass hit table again. Solo thanked Belle and then Prey put a gun to her soft abdomen. Solo grinned.

Solo started the final act and said: 'You got a name?'

Prey:' Yeah, why?'

Solo:'I don't like burying goons nameless.'

Prey wanted to say something and got a bullet that stopped him from saying it.

Post act started. Solo stood, acted fast, calm and comforted Belle and asked her name and if she was OK. She was OK. Solo and Belle talked a bit afterwards. Solo asked her real name. Her name was Sandy. He liked that. He liked everything about her. They talked long, fast and with laughs, the way to talk really.

He started to leave. Sandy stopped him and said: 'Hey, did he deserve this?'

Solo knew that nobody deserves this kind of ending. And tried to find the right words:'He was a bad man. And I wanted to shoot him...

​

 

[Scorched]

Chapter 2 The lying Enforcer

This is me being justfied about it and drinking. Sometimes, somewhere you see guys, they just pulled, shot and killed a living being. And they just walk away. Just like that.

Either they walk it off or they're inhuman.

I drink after the justification. A lot. Each person, each life is the same. If I would kill a king, a drink, a beggar, another drink.

I have a theory. When you drink, you become another person. Your hands on the bar, buzzing and screaming. The oakey bar calling to you. Your hands slip a little on the wetness of the spillage of another drink. You try to keep cool and re-adjust your hands. No one saw you, at least you hope. You reach for the crystalline container again, longing for the curing amber liquid.

You lift the glass and down the drink.

The liquid baths it way into your throat and it burns, before it was cool, now it isn't. It hits you.

After each hit, it changes you.

I think about it so much. It's not a theory, it's more a philosophy.

I'm in another bar, another place where they don't know me and I don't know them.

Only thing I need to know, is what I'm doing the next five minutes. And what I'm doing the next five minutes, you guess right, is drinking.

Another.

A man walks into my bar.

He stops at the door. He gazes around like a hawk before he strikes.

His nose his sharp, so is his hat. My hat is better.

He approaches the bar. And he say: 'Johnny, red, neat.'

Three tiny words meaning more. They say if you take Red, neat, you're an unannounced alcoholic. I like Red and neat.

I salute him for that. With my drink.

He salutes back. We down a drink. He quicker than me, logical, because it was his first. Me, I lost count.

I wanted to say something and did not. Drinking had that effect.

He said: 'You alone?'

Me: 'Nah, I'm Solo.' Joke was getting old and was older than that.

He cracked a grin.

I returned it. He shuffled his jacket a bit, but just enough to see, he was carrying. He brushed it aside, like they do in Westerns. Cool, collected, but with a certain malicious intent. Meaning something and saying nothing.

I was not going to order anymore.

Me: 'You're looking for me...' Made the end linger, made it look like it was a question and a statement at the same time.

He: 'What? I'm drinking some Walker, little over here, I'm looking for drinking.'

I said nothing.

'Oh...you saw my piece, I'm just an Enforcer. Protect and serve and all that...you know.'

'What you're carring?'

'I don't shoot and tell. It's play and find out, not find out, then play. You'll have to play, if you want to know.'

I payed the tender.

'Outside,' I said.

'Why?', Enforcer said.

'Because you're full of shit and I'd like to put you where you belong, beside the horses' manure.'

'Citizen, calm down...you had a little to drink. And need to walk it off...'

'I don't walk off. Shut up...you're not an Enforcer. And I don't like liars. Tell another lie and I kill you dead.'

He said nothing.

People in the bar were starting to get worried and frightened. One person ran for the door faster than an Autumn wind.

One ducked underneath his table. Others were enjoying the sights. It might sound surreal, but shootings almost never happen.

I think it's me. Me and my gun and ruin follows. I live for chaos and pandemonium apparently. I like the quiet, actually.

Me: 'You know what I like, the quiet...this right here...now. You feel it? The silence so thick, you can slice it up and eat it. It feels...inhale it...mystical...serene and intense.'

Enforcer kept quiet. I liked that. At least it meant, he wasn't lying.

Me: 'O...you're quiet. I like that, at least it means, you're not lying your goddamn teeth out.'

I put my hand near my holset. So did he. I actually did it, because he reacher first.

I made eyecontact, didn't lose it and wanted to own the look. He locked eyes with me. Wanting to say something, but then changed his mind and said nothing.

I said nothing.

And he cracked a smile. I said while grinning: 'It has been only a half hour. This town is far from any station. Enforcer's station. And I knew a few Enforcers in my day. You don't look like one. That cool and all, because you're not one. So don't lie about it. You're here for the shooting. That's true. You came because I put someone down. OK, it was justified. But still...you came here...not to arrest me...but to get revenge. Or something I don't know about...who sent you?'

'Sir, I'm going to have you come with me, let's go outside and will talk some more outside and I'll escort you back to the station, ' Enforcer lied.

I shot the Enforcer.

​

 

[Scorched]

Chapter 3 Hole in the wall

'Hope I was right about this one,' I thought.

I grinned in my head. Not out loud. People find that weird. Shooting someone and grinning. I do as well, find it weird. Maybe it was alcohol talking.

Thing is, I need a laugh, now and then. Trust me. Days gone bye without laughter, not really 'days' at all.

I checked the dead man. He had a fine piece indeed. I left that alone. I had a gun and gunslingers need to be buried, with their proper side arms. I checked some more, he did not have any cuffs on him. Good.

Some random bloke, I think the one who ducked under his table, all courage, right now and in my face and up close. He said: 'Yoo... you just shot him. I heard him say, he was an Enforcer, they coming quick to get yoo...ass. They'll hang you. With the hangman.'

'Listen dumbass with dumb words. Not an Enforcer.' I was right. Shot was justified. And I said it so, with my demeanor and pointed my finger to emphasize the last part of my sentence, and just pointed at a dead man. Not an Enforcer.

'How can you tell?', dumbass said. Usually people would've jumped me by now. They did not. I had a gun. They did not. The tender probably has a rifle under the counter. He liked me. I bought drinks.

Me: 'No cuffs.'

'Huh?,' said dumbass.

'Enforcers have cuffs. Always. They need to bring you in don't they. They can;t just go around shooting people dead.'

'Yeah...yooo...I think y'ore, right.

Sure I am, dumbass. And I rushed outside.

A whole semi-circle of goons was blocking the area. They sure as hell sent a kill squad. Not a suicide squad, because they had mighty fine looking piece, all oiled up and ready to go.

I rushed back inside, quicker than I went outside.

I dashed behind the counter. And said: 'A minute.' And I shoved the bartender away quickly, I took a bottle of liquor and paid. Coin on counter.

Took a rag from my coat. Took a match from a bum who was smoking in a filthy corner and lit the rag as I put it in the bottle. Molotov cocktail. I threw it outside, with me behind the door, without looking, without warning and just making them scared.

I heard one dude scream outside. Hope it didn't get him. Fear was established though. I could tell.

How? Because bullets came raining in the bar. People usually fire bullets, when scared, either that or they're angry, because of the Molotov and the friend I killed. He shouldn't have lied. I told him not to lie and he did and he was here to kill me. It was a clean shooting.

I did not shoot back. No point in wasting bullets on people you can't see.

People ducked everywhere in the bar. Some ducked behind the bar and some just put their hands on the back of their hands. Lying on the ground.

I looked around and spotted a flight of stairs. Upstairs. Vantage point. I ran and took a bullet in my thigh, I think as I ascended.

I was bleeding a little, meaning I got shot alright. I looked around and found another rag. It sure is full of rags.

I tied it like a tourniquet around my limb, stopping the bleeding, a little. I check if the bullet went out. It did. Clean exit wound.

I had five bullets left in the chamber, I would need to make them count. I think I saw five guys in the semi-circle, meaning if I got one of them with the freshly mixed volatile cocktail, I could take out the rest, with a clean fan. Put up my gun on a nice window, stealthy, me preying on them, them not knowing and just salvo-ing the final burst of my gun and the finale of their lives.

All in all, a quick end to a gunfight that has gone on too long already.

I checked the room upstairs and found some whores. Not what I was looking for. None of the rooms had windows. Then I went back to the very first room I checked. That one had the smartest looking one, whore I mean. She talked, I listened, hard, after I asked where an opening was, aiming at open space in front of the bar.

Look, if the guns outside were smart, they would've flanked the building and entered and they could come and get me real quick.

They were dumb. Because Samantha, the prostitute, very nice and kind, showed me an opening. An opening of the building, an old hole that needed fixing. Carpenter got lazy and blew the cash on coke and women.

So the hole. I looked out and saw four guys tending to one smoldering dude. So apparently I got one and the rest was dumb and was just waiting me out. In front, out in the open and being dumb.

I grinned, out loud this time. No one to hear me. I put my gun to the hole and made a simulation in my head. Practicing my fanning, four guys, four bullets. If I miss, I still have one in the chamber. OK.

I did another practice run. Breathed in and out. Pulled the gun out, checked the chambers, good to go. Put the gun back in the hole and started my meditative breathing.

In. Out and in and out and quicker and then I held my breath and took aim.


​

 

[Scorched]

Chapter 4 Fire in the hole

Gun in hole. Smoke blazing from the mouth of my revolver. Four dead bodies. Down below in the open dusty field. Four dead losers, waiting for me, waiting in front of the bloody door.

Revolver smoking, four bullets spent, eyes little weary and one round left in the chamber. All in all, a clean shoot.

Fanning went all right. Give or take, it took maybe less than two seconds, from start to finish.

Here's what happened. Real slowed down.

I took aim.

Breathed in, held breath, closed one eye, or not, I forgot. That happens when you go in to this 'Alone' mode. I cleared the mechanism, sound dissipated, I just was and I was breathing and I held my gun and the gun just was. And I was there with it. The revolver didn't waver. Steady as shit. I thought of nothing, a thought or two maybe came, I would see it, look at it and it would just float away.

The gun was aiming and so was I, I was the gun. I was the first round. A breeze landed on my hand. Gently.

My finger, and only after all that, did my finger go to the metal trigger and hugged it, cool steel embraced my finger and I did nothing. I did not shoot.

I breathed out and simultaneous. And only then, after I breathed out, I squeezed the trigger, didn't pull. I squeezed and a shot was delivered. The hammer fell on the backside of the round, it ignited the spark, velocity was being made, a puff of smoke and fire and ash burst forward. The bullet sped forward. Propulsing forward, it left the lovely mouth of the steel revolver and went in the air.

I swear I could see the bullet, if only for a quarter of a millisecond. The bullet traveled. From the hole, fire in the hole, to the first guy on the right. I started gunning them down, right to left. Felt natural.

The bullet touched the guy's flesh. The flesh in front of his rib cage. The bullet went through, a puff of pink mist showered the air. The bullet probably cracked a rib or two. I did not see that. Just blood. Spraying everywhere. The bullet entered his thorax, killed his heart dead. By entering and leaving again, like a bad girlfriend on Friday.

The bullet left at the backside. Clean exit wound, yeah...I use special bullets. They don't stop. They end, though. They end people.

The bullet probably hit dirt and became one with the ground and the body fell harder than a wet bag of sand, falling from a horse's saddle back.

The body became one with dirty. Dirty dead man down. First one down.

My gun is single action. Meaning I have to 'fan', meaning I have to cock the hammer back real quick, over and over again for each shot. I knew that about the gun, when I found it. I still use it. It does not make me lazy. Fanning keeps me sharp and in the mode.

My left index finger went to the hammer, cocked it back. At the same time, I heard one of the losers make sound. The sound traveled through air, he probably said something like: 'He's up there...he's...gun...shot...putting down.' The mode kept me from hearing, and the first shot did not help with hearing as well.

Now I was the hammer and then the chamber revolved, next bullet went to the starting brackets, ready to blaze out and do some killing. Bullet went to his home. Hammer cocked. Now I was the second bullet. I love this mode. I probably didn't even breathe in between these thoughts.

I breathed in again, hard. And I held it...and slightly nudged the revolver a tad left. Good. Target. Another loser. Soon another dead man.

I was the trigger, I squeezed the trigger again, I squeezed myself. I set the bullet out in the world. Same mechanism. Hammer. Backside bullet. Igniting spark. Fire and chaos. Exit of gun. And the bullet just flew away, the same way the first did.

The second bullet just landed somewhere else. He landed in another loser's head. The bullet ate flesh and tore bone to pieces. It went cozy and snug inside the skull and shredded the brains and left at the backside of the head. All pink and mushy and gooey and flying away in to the abyss of air, into the Wastelands.

I was the gun again and at the same time I was my left middle finger, as the finger reached the hammer again and cocking and revolving the chamber and securing another round. The third round. Two down, two to go. Two bullets spent and I had three left. No time for reloading, gotta make these shots count.

Don't use the last one, that is your pride, you are your pride. The last one is backup, sure, but it's weak. Finish of four guys with four bullets. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast and fast is death.

Then I breathed out, and quickly chased another breath in. Or I did not even breath between all the shots. Everything was just a gigantic hazy one long shot of breath.

Third round. Third hammer strike and fire and puff of smoke and air travel. And puff of mist, pink mist. This guy died hard, the third guy. He literally ate a bullet. He ate a bullet. The poison that it was, he died, eating a bullet. His belly was not full and fell to the floor, same way as the other two.

The ring finger completed the fanning action. I was smiling in my head. Revolver moved out of itself, a tad left again. Securing the final shot. Target acquired, fourth target. Fourth dead man standing. Fourth bullet and final damn bullet. Sure I had one left. But no, four dudes, four bullets.

I just fired the damn final shot.

It cost me a lot of thinking, or not. I just breathed, so I wasn't thinking. I simply was the gun. I was the executioner and the gun did the killing.

One, two, three and four. Four bullets spent and four graves was about to be dug. Not by me.

 

[Scorched]

Chapter 5 Lizard

after the four men dead

Four bullets spent and four guys dead. This would need, at least four drinks. Maybe more. We'll see. I wanted to get a drink downstairs, inside the bar, where the guys where waiting me out, outside. Not a really smart idea, since maybe more was on the way, more dead and chaos and I had only one left in the chamber. I need to get more ammo. Con of packing special ammo.

So I went outside, saw the dead bodies. Didn't flinch, cause I reminded self, that they wanted it. And they were dumb as hell. Waiting me out, four man crew, just in front of the door, just plain old fashioned stupid.

I went to the next town out, was maybe a few miles out. I would walk, like I always do, just to get a drink. In that town I would need to get a horse and go the the gunsmith. Special bullets.

No extra 'Enforcers' or real Enforcers seemed to make an appearance. They wanted me, but not that bad, apparently. And to top it off, this is the Wasteland, nobody flinches when they see a few bodies lying around. Nobody 'calls' the law enforcement.

I just went out of town, walking, it seemed like a moment to whistle, only I was too weary, weak and not in a whistling mood.

The sun was starting to set, and dusk came to take it's place, soon. The scorcy sand always swivles around and around, in my mouth, out of it and into my eyes and out of it and just twirling around everywhere. Sand just was. It was scarlet sand, almost like you see on Mars.

But it wasn't that exotic and extraterrestial, it was right here and dry and annoying. It didn't bother me, but it annoyed me and I was used to it. You have to.

I took a few steps in to the Wastelands, I saw a lizard. Real Mad max like, only I did not stomp the poor thing to eat it, it was poisonous. I tumbled on further. Then gusts of red blazy winds started cutting me down. I couldn't budge, it was a mini hurricane, very local, strong and unables you to walk.

I went to find shelter, shelter from the storm. I couldn't see shit for eyes. And just went with my gut. It always kept me alive. The sand does a funny thing when it's storming, it befriends dark abysses and just opens up strange new worlds. A world I needed right now. A cave. A dark strange moist new world.

I undid the bandana-scarf-poncho-like thing from my neck and head and mouth. I dusted it off, it was full of earthy red sand. I dropped the thing on the ground. On top of the red sand. And I scoped around the cave, it was only two or three meters deep, no people inside and I holstered my revolver again.

I sat down and started waiting the storm out. In my shelter.

I started checking my gun, like the old western dudes do. I checked the last round, the rest of the chambers, the hammer, ad infinitum. It took me maybe ten to fifteen minutes to do all that. Then I started waiting again, the sand was a good friend, holding me down, holding me in a cave, to stop me from getting anywhere.

About an hour past and I started to get bored and saw a lizard again and I stomped on it and killed it and ate it. Not poisonous.

I was hungry, the lizard helped with that. And the storm quieted down, I took my scarf-like thing, draped it over my shoulders and went outside, outside of the cave. And I said goodbye to the shelter.

Outside: a gigantic black monstrous lizard appeared. Out of the storm in to a lizard's reach.

​